The first rule of advocating for climate change-related legislation is: You do not talk about "climate change."

From Physorg and the “if we can just figure out how to conceal the taste with sugar” movement.

Context is king when advocating for renewable energy policies, according to political science professor

June 30, 2017 by Sonia Fernandez

Credit: University of California – Santa Barbara

The first rule of advocating for climate change-related legislation is: You do not talk about “climate change.” The term has become so polarizing that its mere mention can cause reasonable people to draw seemingly immutable lines in the political sand.

“In some ways, it functions as what we would call a ‘dog-whistle’,” said UC Santa Barbara political science professor Leah Stokes, referring to a term or statement that while innocent-sounding enough to most people, encodes deeper and more specific meanings to certain audiences. And it’s true: For many conservatives, the idea of enacting climate change-related renewable energy policies is fraught with fears of economic loss and major lifestyle changes. For many liberals, on the other hand, not enacting such policies is fraught with fears of economic loss and major lifestyle changes. It’s a tug-of-war that began at the start of the century and continues today.

“Trump is president right now and therefore we’re really unlikely to see new federal laws trying to support climate change legislation or renewable energy policy, or dealing with environmental problems,” Stokes said. States will likely become the leaders in pursuing renewable energy policy to maintain progress and deal with potentially damaging environmental effects, such as sea level rise and air quality problems, she said. But levels of support for action vary across the nation, and the challenge will be to avoid triggering knee-jerk reactions that are less about the issue and more about partisanship.

“We try to understand what kinds of messages would work with the public and how that would translate into more states actually doing something about these issues,” said Stokes, who with Christopher Warshaw of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted research into how people connect (or not) with the hot-button issues related to climate change, such as renewable energy legislation. Their study, “Renewable Energy Policy Design and Framing Influence Public Support in the United States,” is published in the journal Nature Energy.

The good news from the results of their repeated survey experiment: Public support for renewable energy in the U.S. is very strong. According to their baseline figures, the vast majority of people in the country support renewable energy portfolios in their states, in which a certain amount of the states’ electricity comes from a renewable source . The results are what you might expect: States with an abundance of renewable resources—California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Iowa, for instance—top the list and have actual renewable energy policies in play, while the southern and mountain states tend to have little support, and no renewable energy policies.

92 thoughts on “The first rule of advocating for climate change-related legislation is: You do not talk about "climate change."”

It is still selling the same old model, just with different words. I saw an essay on euphemisms, and how they become effectively useless in short order. BTW, “rooster” was a euphemism for “cock” after that word became a euphemism itself.

For many conservatives, the idea of enacting climate change-related renewable energy policies is fraught with fears of economic loss and major lifestyle changes.

Well this has been the basis of all the alarmist crap from the outset. That they want to impose certain choices on the rest of the population and since they know that many do not share their love of renewable energy, the only way to do it is may making out the world will end if we don’t.Those who question their BS are not ” fraught with fears “, we just know a shake down when we see one and don’t like being lied to in order to trick us into adopting certain policies.
I’m generally in favour of using wind and solar where possible and minimising energy usage but I strongly object to being lied to and as a trained scientist I object to throwing the scientific method under a bus to achieve it.
If the whole subject has become so toxic is because of the all the name calling , bullying and deception that they have practised over the last 30 years.
Maybe this is the beginning of a realisation that screaming insults at those who don’t agree with your policy choices is not the best way to get everyone on board. Sadly it is almost certainly to late now that they have poisoned the well.

Hawaii was not particularly an early enthusiast of renewables, considering the bad results of their windfarms. And their reason for renewables has more to do with the fact that they have to import all their fuel (oil, LPG, coal) and have the highest electric rates in the nation – over 35 cents per kWhr, or three times the national average. If those hulu bunnies had any brains, they would build a nuclear power plant
and eliminate all their problems. Actually, Russia is building floating small nuclear reactors that they operate for the customer-they simply tow it into a convenient port and hook up to the cities power lines. If the guys running the Aloha state had any brains, they would opt for nuclear, one way or the other. Coming soon are molten salt reactors that are worth waiting for. Of course, the stupid liberal natives can’t wait. They are such children. They need immediate gratification.

Actually, my bill is closer to 42cents / kwh. Hawaii is more anti-development than pro renewables. We have enough geothermal resources to power the state several times over, but NIMBYs and Luddites rule.

When are coming the molten salt reactors ??
Does somebody somewhere on the planet have a permit to build one; do they have a site to put it on ? Do they have the money to build it ?
How many gigawatt peak operating power is it ??
When will they throw the “On” switch of this coming soon new source of energy ?
Just asking; right now I have plenty of energy available to me, from existing sources.
So why should I wait for a pie in the sky ?
G

UC Santa Barbara political science professor Leah Stokes, referring to a term or statement that while innocent-sounding enough to most people, encodes deeper and more specific meanings to certain audiences.
Bit like Historical Fiction. Neither are True.

Perhaps professor Stokes could conjure up a way to enlighten the green side of the debate about the futility of trying to replace massively high energy density fossil fuel with pathetically low density renewables. Here’s a simple example to get the good professor going: A gallon of gasoline can propel a two ton motor vehicle 40 miles down a highway. A one square meter solar panel will, on average, keep a 40 watt light bulb going for 24 hours a day.

alfredmelbourne, tell me, do the Clinton’s prevent the wind from blowing at the poles when the sun is below the horizon? That was the original question I asks, but you seemed to have changed the subject for some unknown reason.

Rob Bradley:
You miss (deliberately deflect from ?) the pertinent point when you ask

does the wind blow at the poles when the sun is below the horizon?

There are many silly but possible actions that could be taken. Attempting to return to unreliables which were displaced by fossil fuels is only one of them.
Fossil fuels displaced unreliables when the greater energy intensity of fossil fuels became available to do work because fossil fuels are inherently cheaper energy sources and their supplies of energy are controlled by people and not nature.
If wind power were sensible then oil tankers would be sailing ships.
Richard

Nobody doubts for a moment that climate changes.
I can drive ten miles down the road, and be in a different climate from what I am in right now.
There’s a multiple infinity of different climates available locally all over this planet.
So what are you actually trying to sell us; besides smoke and mirrors ??
G

You could charge your Leaf with solar panels on your roof.
Of course, you need to leave it home all day to charge, which sorta kills the whole “having a car” thing.
Or you could buy tens of thousands of dollars in batteries and charge them up with the forty or so square meters of solar panels it would need (because of charging losses x 2). With installation and hardware, you’re only looking at thirty thousand or so dollars to charge up your car that can only drive 100 miles on a day’s solar output… on a clear, sunny day. If you allow for cloudy days, multiply this times three or four.

Chad, you ought to learn about the technology before you make comments about it. First of all, no batteries are needed. You connect your panels directly to the grid with a grid tie inverter. That way, you turn your meter “backwards” when the sun shines. Then you charge the car at night and your meter runs “forward.”
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Now, you say, ” kills the whole “having a car” thing.” I guess you’ve never thought that some people don’t drive to work. I guess you’ve never thought that some people work 2nd or 3rd shift.
…
Finally, your estimation of cost is a decade old. At $1.00 per watt, $7,000.00 worth of panels would be sufficient, $2,500.00 for inverter, and $4,000.00 for labor.

Of course to get the full benefit that you are planning on, you would have to put that $7K of panels on flexible mounts so that they can follow the sun. You also have to stack them vertically so that they don’t block the each other during the day.
You have to clean them regularly if you want to get full power from. Be careful not to scratch the glass in the process, otherwise your efficiency goes way down.
Lets not forget that the efficiency of your panels starts dropping from the first day you install them. So while they may be enough to get you to work the first year, second year forward, tough luck.
Finally, have you factored in replacing that array every 15 to 20 years?

1) “on flexible mounts so that they can follow the sun” Nope, south facing on the slant of a typical roof is adequate
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2) “You also have to stack them vertically”……LOL…..LOL….LOL….I’ll mount them horizontally. Do you understand the difference between horizontal and verticle?
…
3) You have to clean them regularly…..Nope, if it rains, they stay clean
..
4) Have you ever scratched your windshield when you’ve cleaned it? I’ve never scratched mine using paper towels and windex.
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5) “second year forward, tough luck.” ….LOL…LOL…LOL…have you ever read the typical power warranty from a panel maker?

You need to get real.
I’ve been living off the grid on an island off the West Coast for more than a decade and know right down to the last watt and cent what is involved in PV – walk into my place and you’d never know you’re off the grid, computers, TV and all the household appliances you can think of.
Bottom line, at 48N [a latitude that cuts across most advanced economies] with six quality panels, a smart inverter and a 15kW battery bank you’re pretty much OK April 15th – September 15th. November 15th – Feb 15th, zero input – sun’s far too low to do anything and you’re running your 5kW generator every other day for 2-3 hrs.
Cost? On the mainland electricity costs approx. 9 cents / kWh at the wall. With all the hardware amortized over 10 years, on the island you’re looking at 10X that…. !
Charging a Nissan Leaf from the panels on the roof? A Leaf or Tesla off the grid? The ultimate in greenie delusion – do the math.
BTW did you catch the recent Swedish technical analysis showing you can drive an e.g. Subaru or Malibu for 3 years before you catch up on the CO2 emissions from producing just the Leaf’s batteries [8 years to match the CO2 involved in the Tesla S batteries]?
The devil will always be in walking the walk – “yes we can” vs. “show me”.

1) Excluding Alaska, all of the US is below the 48th. Dallas is at 32N
2) November 15th – Feb 15th, zero input – sun’s far too low to do anything…….guess you hired a shoemaker to install the panels……you do realize that if you adjust the tilt of the panel, you can get them to produce full power with the sun low in the sky?…..and a added advantage, when the sun is low in the sky, crystalline panels conversion efficiency maxes out due to the cold.
3) Cost?…..you’re off-grid…..a grid connected system is much less expensive (no batteries required.)
4) ” do the math ” on average (summer/winter/sunny/cloudy) I get 3 kwh for each 1 kw of panels I have on my roof. 7 kw of panels would on average yields 21 kwh per day. A Leaf hold 30kwh in it’s batteries. A full Leaf charge gets you 200 miles. Round trip to work is 12 miles for me……….now, please explain what is “delusional” with these numbers.
5) what happens with the comparison of CO2 versus the Leaf in years 4-10 ?

I have a roof with a south facing slope that is 750 sq ft. But because of where I live, I can’t place solar panels on my roof. They could be placed on an awning but this would need to be freestanding and covering the driveway, carport, and side yard area to get the same area. This awning would place my total cost at over $60,000 and possibly as high as $80,000. At that rate, my average utility bill, currently $200 per month, $2,400 per year would take over 30 years just to recover the initial expense not including potential maintenance costs.

Rob,
Sounds like you spent $35,000 for a car that requires you to spend 20 hours to refuel from a 1/4 tank charge. Then spent a further $14,000 – $15,000 so you could have the privilege of spending 28 – 32 hours to recharge from nearly depleted for a trip of less than 200 miles.
Hmmm
If you commute 50 miles per day to work, and 50 miles home, you would be traveling 1/2 the full charge distance daily so presumably recharge in half the time. Now, considering travel time of about an hour, you would need 16 hours to recharge at 1/2 charge every day. But with an 8.5 hour day (1/2 hour for lunch) and 2 hours for travel, you will only have 13.5 hours to recharge so you wouldn’t be totally recharging every day. You are gradually depleting throughout the week until you have the weekend to get caught up.
Hope you have a gas powered back-up for longer trips. I recently took a trip to Las Vegas 11 hours driving 650 miles. Your Leaf would need to recharge for 96 hours at your home charger speed and the trip would take you 5 or 6 days

A 6 mile each way round trip commute to work?
The answer?
Buy a push bike!
More fun, get fit, save buckets of cash and keep the warmistas off your back.
Keep a cheap little fossil fuelled runabout for the 5,000 or so miles a year for carrying heavy stuff around (shopping / holidays / children too lazy to bike). My little Hyundai i20 averages 45mpg. I reckon my “carbon footprint” is waaaayyy lower than a Nissan Leaf or Toyota Prius (the UK electric hybrid car of choice).

“ But with an 8.5 hour day (1/2 hour for lunch) and 2 hours for travel, you will only have 13.5 hours to recharge so you wouldn’t be totally recharging every day.”

But Bryan, …. Rob B is talking “re-charging” his vehicle via solar panels and for him to do what you say above ……. then he would have to work the “night shift” so that his vehicle could hopefully re-charge during your aforesaid “13.5 hours of summertime daylight”.
He could, of course, purchase two (2) EVs and drive one while the other one is re-charging.

OK, works for you, but hardly anyone lives 6 miles away from where they work. If they did, diamond lanes would be unnecessary. Curiosity…how many cycles is your battery supposed to last before you need to replace it and what is the replacement cost?

Leaf’s haven’t been around long enough to fall out of warranty:
From the Warranty:
.
In addition to the Lithium-ion Battery Coverage for defects in materials or workmanship (96 months/100,000 miles, whichever comes first), the Nissan LEAF® Lithium-ion battery is also warranted against capacity loss below nine bars of capacity as shown on the vehicle’s battery capacity level gauge for a period of 96 months or 100,000 miles (whichever occurs first) with the 30 kWh battery [*] . See your Owner’s Manual for tips on maximizing battery life and capacity.

Hopefully they don’t receive a rash of replacement needs next year as that will be 96 months from original release.
On another note, how did Nissan create a 30 KWH battery that costs $5,500 to replace yet delivers the same distance as Teslas 60 Kwh battery that costs in the range of $40,000 to replace? Seems to me that a 30Kwh battery would only deliver around 100 miles per charge

Sunlight here lasts about 14 hours a day, intensely maybe 8 hours, in late June. At other times, it lasts less long than that. Is there some way the solar panel can store up the strong input from 8 hours a day and the weaker input for another 6 and still illuminate that bulb for 10 hours of no light? This question, of course, assumes no clouds.

Liberals, by this definition, will believe in any hypothetical notion as long as it is not self-contradictory. Conservatives will observe the real situation and balk at the assertions of the liberals.
The situation really is not about two camps, each trying to protect its own best interests as it perceives them. The situation is two completely different ways of looking at the world.

It may be that ‘Liberalism’, as defined in this article has built in self contradictions. The book the article describes was written in 1964. It is just as accurate today as when it was written, perhaps more obviously so.
The definition of the word ‘liberal’ has been bent and twisted beyond all recognition. It used to refer to liberty and many people still use it that way especially outside the United States. link When you use the word ‘liberal’ pejoratively it sounds to them like you’re advocating tyranny.

“The results are what you might expect” as in the states that get massive federal subsidies from wind and solar LOVE wind and solar—or actually, they LOVE handouts, but that sounds so harsh.
As noted previously, wind and solar need no help right now—they have PTC through 2020. What do they care???

Hmmmm.
PoliSci.
From California.
Doubts, dear soul, doubts.
#
Yet –
““We try to understand what kinds of messages would work with the public and how that would translate into more states actually doing something about these issues,” said Stokes, who with Christopher Warshaw of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted research into how people connect (or not) with the hot-button issues related to climate change, such as renewable energy legislation. Their study, “Renewable Energy Policy Design and Framing Influence Public Support in the United States,” is published in the journal Nature Energy.”
Stokes is, of course ‘UC Santa Barbara political science professor Leah Stokes’.
The premise – finding out what turns people off – or on – to watermelons’ message is, in fact, significant.
I may not agree with the conclusions [and I’m a bum boatie, not a PolSci perfesser, so I guess my gut feeling is worth less than 125% of Stokes’ conducted research!!!!] – but this needs watching by folk who understand this ‘psyops’ approach.
I, frankly, do not.
Auto – not even a fan of office politics . . . .

‘For many conservatives, the idea of enacting climate change-related renewable energy policies is fraught with fears of economic loss and major lifestyle changes.’
This is wrong. Stupid wrong. The conservative objection has nothing to do with fears. Stokes is applying her false view of conservatives to the situation. In fact, conservatives don’t like doing stupid things. ‘Climate change-related renewable energy policies’ are junk science in action. Wasting money on junk science is stupid.
‘States will likely become the leaders in pursuing renewable energy policy to maintain progress and deal with potentially damaging environmental effects, such as sea level rise and air quality problems, she said.’
There is no increase in sea level rise or air pollution. More junk science. But conservatives, you see, are afraid of economic loss and lifestyle changes. Putting their personal interests ahead of society.
This playbook is decades old.

Rational people envision a basket of energy production and conversion technologies, including windmills and photovoltaic panels, selected on merit as fit to purpose. The prophecy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is a positive assertion, an article of faith, that cannot be proven in the scientific domain, and is therefore an irrational criterion to use for planning and development. Perhaps if there was some greater principle with a redeeming value to our society, to humanity.

In Australia, Dr Alan Finkel has recently published a report commissioned by the government on future electricity supplies. His 200+ page report included the following information.
Average Levelised Costs of Electricity in 2020 (Source: Dr Finkel Report)
AUD$/MWhr
Wind $92 No back up
Large-scale Solar PV $91 No back up
Large-scale Solar PV $138 Includes 3 hours storage at 100%
Solar Thermal with storage $172 Includes 12 hours storage at 100%
Combined Cycle Gas Turbine $83
Open Cycle Gas Turbine $123
Supercritical Coal $76
Ultrasupercritical Coal $81 {600 degrees C, 27.5 MPa (4,000 psi)}
So to provide wind with 100% gas back up, total cost $175-$215/MWhr.
But to comply with the politically correct instructions, Dr Finkel added that by 2050 wind/solar with backup will be cheaper than coal.
Meanwhile in the real world, wholesale electricity prices in Victoria (Source: AEMO) have increased from 46 A$/MWhr in 2016 to over A$100/MWhr in 2Q 2017 with the closure of the Hazelwood brown coal power station. Wind/solar/hydro make up about 14% of the mix, and they must increase to 23.5% by 2020 under legislation known as the renewable energy target. And those “renewable/intermittent” suppliers also get paid an extra A$82/MWhr that is factored into retail prices that just jumped another 20% on July 1. Those wind mill investors must be laughing all the way to their banks.

“Dr Finkel added that by 2050 wind/solar with backup will be cheaper than coal.”
Let me get this straight. He’s claiming that a coal plant and wind/solar will be cheaper than the coal plant all by itself?

First, they dropped catastrophic. Then, they dropped anthropogenic. It’s no longer global warming, it’s now climate change. I was skeptical. But, now, … What is the value of discovering a self-evident state of Nature?

About 16 years ago I was experimenting on a small homemade Stanley Steamer type motor with some modifications. I had read about Steam Turbines from the 1800’s used as electric generator motors and steam ships in my younger years. The main issue was the boiler and burning Fossil Fuels to power it. I then came across some new assaying furnaces using microwave oven technologies. I’m sure most of you know putting metal in microwave ovens causes some very bad things to happen. You can put thick refractory blocks in a microwave and smelt in them like a gas furnace using the common assaying crucibles, etc. Or just build the microwave furnace without all the stuff that melts… Which I did using a small one I replaced with a bigger one in our kitchen. I created a water injector that sprays into a honeycomb from a catalytic converter inside a thick ceramic block the Microwave is directed at = steam that drives the pistons that drives the generator that powers the microwave and water pump and a fan for the radiator and enough electricity to run my workshop…once I start it with another wall outlet…the main can be disconnected. With a system of pipes and values from the main water tank holding 5 gallons of de-ionized water and a radiator to cool the steam back to water it is self contained. During winter the radiator is set up the heat the shop and then directed outside when in warm weather.
There is no real reason that this cannot be scaled bigger. The problem is over regulations when the city power company got involved when I went off the grid using it to power my property and forced me to not use it. And it was the noise it makes that got them involved by neighborhood complaints. I can’t blame them… it was quite loud when an over pressure occurred and releases. But, I’m remedying that.
Places like Hawaii have natural sources of heat vents for steam generators. The problem is they are protected park’s. Environmentalism seems to override common sense.

Uh, unless I’m missing something, it sounds like you’re talking about a perpetual motion machine. Are you seriously suggesting your microwaved steam can power not only your microwave but a water pump and a fan as well, with no further power inputs?

I was vague on purpose. A work in progress. You have heard of mechanical engineering combining things not related to obtain an objective. Cornish Wheel water pumps comes to mind of nearly perpetual motion. A small battery turning a high speed little motor with planetary gears creates high torque screwdriver. Combining the principles makes many thing’s possible. You can watch a video of a electric motor driven generator that runs shop tools and they unplug the motor from the wall outlet after having it ran by the generator and still run the shop tools. Is that not perpetual? Yes it required energy to start the process but it work’s.

http://www.stanleymotorcarriage.com/SteamEngine/SteamEngineGeneral.htm
My modified version has smaller cylinders and 4 of them is equal to a 16 cylinder gas motor, produces 5.7 hp at idle and 32 hp max. Where my system is cycled the steam is not vented out. Patents are pending.
Creating Steam from water using microwaves requires mush less energy when you are heating metals that the preheated water being recycled through my design is passing through it in a high pressure spray. The first system I designed used the old catalytic converter – I gave above – has been replaced by newer tech to make it more efficient.http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_8795_8795
As you see the basic generator – this one being a newer model than the one I used – provides plenty of energy to run my workshop and requires less HP than the steam engine is capable of. Gearing to get the rpms was a simple gear box and pulley’s to run the generator and power the cooling fan for the radiator that the holding tank for the water runs about 190 to 200 degrees after it’s all heated up.” The enthalpy of vaporization is the energy required to turn water into the gaseous form when it increases in volume by 1,700 times at standard temperature and pressure;”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam
You should come out of the caveman era, it is the age of technology and I’ll not go into the electronics that are used to control everything. Old steam engines had problems of dirty water corrosion and salt build up that effected their performance…I eliminated that. Newer high temperature pistons and rings replaced those old styles. The old grease soaked seals were also replaced by modern high temp seals New high strength bearings compared to ball bearings. Only heating the small volume of water to steam and not a big boiler full of water was the main improvement. The generator controls the output without much change to the steam engine rpm/hp. And no…I’m nowhere near production.

So, once again the “academics” are so stupid and disconnected from real people that they had to fund a “repeated survey experiment” in order to find out what the average person with common sense could have told them for free. (ie-the average poster/reader here at WUWT)
“Stokes and Warshaw found that the context in which renewable energy policy is framed, particularly in terms of jobs, electricity costs and pollution, has a tremendous impact on a person’s opinion of it. As Americans favor cheap electricity, the greatest factor would be cost. Even a $2 increase in monthly electric bills would likely cause support for renewable energy to drop by 13 percent, shifting 13 states away from renewable energy policy. A $10 increase would likely result in the majority of states taking an opposing view, the researchers found.”
Yep. The greatest factor IS COST. Even those people who think it will save the planet, or is the “right” thing to do have a price point. DUH. And we could have told you that it’s an incredibly LOW price point even for greenies and planet savers who love their own private financial security MORE than they care about the big picture that they scream about in public.
The article goes on to talk about how if it brings in “substantial job creation” it “would be enough to flip opponents of renewable energy into supporters—and the more jobs, the better. However, states with no net job increases would probably see corresponding decreases in renewable energy support.”
So- no job increase, no increase in support. And the more jobs it would create, the more supportive people would be. Another DUH.
The last- “A decrease in fossil fuel-borne pollution is another huge factor that could sway even the staunchest opponents—typically Republicans—of renewable energy policies.”
Really? Republicans don’t LIKE air pollution? They don’t embrace it as a key weapon for killing the planet and everyone on it? (snark) DUH. Republicans DO want clean air, water, and environments!!
SO….as most posters here at WUWT have said, in print, for at least a decade now…if/when someone finds a way to make renewable energy CHEAP, dependable (all day, every day) and do it while creating jobs, EVERYONE WOULD BE ALL FOR IT and the cleaner air would just be an added bonus that we all want anyway.
Now…if they could only do a “repeated survey experiment” to ask people why the average American ignores, discounts the crap published by political science professors…naw, it would just be another waste of our time.

Jobs are a cost, not a benefit. Rate payers have to pay the employees. They’d rather not.
“and the cleaner air would just be an added bonus”
Cleaner than what? We have clean air. What is “cleaner air?”

“We try to understand what kinds of messages would work…”
Behavior modification….the left is a strong believer and proponent of it
Obama hired a large behavior modification department…..the main reason you could hear him say one thing to one group…and something totally different to another group
….no matter what you wanted to hear him say..you would hear it at some point

Steve Mcdonald Australia.
South Australia a state of ours has purpously made their energy costs the most expensive in the world through wind and solar.
The wind has naturally become quiet.
The energy supply is in a critical situation.
The B.O.M. weather channel has blamed climate change.
Two people who agree that the energy policy forced on South Australia should be forced on the whole country are the 2 leaders of the leftist labor party.
Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten.

That’s easy. It’s because the late great Waxman-Markey carbon tax bill with wealth redistribution set off every alarm bell in DC and they all know it. They touched the third rail and got zapped.Their hair is still smoking from that one.

Messaging aka BSing is the grease of politics isn’t it. Money grubbing disguised as alturistic public policy preceded by a vanguard of yapping tools. The actual message ‘This is a robbery. Get your hands up’

““We try to understand what kinds of messages would work with the public and how that would translate into more states actually doing something about these issues,” said Stokes”
Gee… maybe they could try the TRUTH instead of once more going into another propaganda exercise of finding ways to hide the scam…

@Rob Bradley
You need to make an effort and produce that deep sucking sound that come with getting your head out of where the sun don’t shine… True to form you appear to think that the US is the only advanced industrial economy on the planet – July the 4th and your current president’s fabulations notwithstanding, not so. And at 32N the deserts in Texas and North Africa have a few things in common.
In fact Germany, the test crash dummy country that prides itself on pushing through a renewable energy revolution [energiewende] has walked right into the fundamental problems I described: entire seasons with no sun or no wind. 10 years and euro 500 billion in subsidies later, during the past 3 winters, just when the juice is really important, solar and wind contributed just over 1% of Germany’s electricity.
Which, said in passing, is why that country quietly – Mrs Merkel’s climate crocodile tears aside – is in the process of bringing on line 16 coal fired plants all the while lambasting the US for walking away from Paris.
Meamwhile the average Germany on-the-grid household is today paying 35c/kWh at the wall. That’s what you get in the real world when you allow greenie ideology to run the show.
To the cars:
3 years worth of CO2 to catch up on a Leaf and 8 for a Tesla S. Where you go off into blue yonder is that there will be no “years 4-10”. That’s because as anyone in that industry with a modicum of integrity would tell you if asked, the batteries in those cars will ne kaput having recharged to death, and everyone of those vehicles will need new ones – so the 3- 8 year CO2 cycle starts again.
So do the math Rob: by the time the Tesla runs through its second set of batteries the Malibu would have done 16×20,000 = 320,000 miles, which is completely unrealistic because it would have been scrapped long before that and therefore stopped producing CO2 – while the Tesla’s CO2 account is still running. See the problem?
Simply facts like that hadn’t occurred to you, had they? Arrogance – which you clearly have in spades – does that – blinds you and closes the mind.
So why don’t you go pound some sand and ponder the reality that talking the talk is not at all the same thing as walking the walk [ask the previous president if you need pointers]…

USA’s private sector wastes roughly $2 TRILLION PER YEAR (about equal to the entire GDP of India) on mostly unneeded and absurd rules and regulation compliance costs.
While the US flushes $trillions/yr down the toilet on regulations, debates which pronouns and bathrooms to use, Leftists’ heads explode over the Russia/Trump/Bigfoot sc@m, and Trump Tweets, China is quietly but aggressively developing Thorium MSRs, which they estimate will be commercially available in about 12 years….
Here is a presentation a Chinese delegation of nuclear physicists made to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) late last year in Vienna:https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2016/2016-10-31-11-03-NPTDS/05_TMSR_in_China.pdf
When Chinese LFTRs go online around 2030, a huge tsunami of Western manufacturing will move to China to take advantage of their: near free and unlimited energy, minimal regulations, low taxes and cheap labor..
And so it goes, until it doesn’t……

In some ways, it functions as what we would call a ‘dog-whistle’,” said UC Santa Barbara political science professor Leah Stokes, referring to a term or statement that while innocent-sounding enough to most people
Those living in ‘safe space’ at least.

What do we know of Leah Stokes?
At a guess, a child.
Why?
There comes a point in everyone’s lives when something rather ‘major’ happens. Be it marriage, divorce, job loss/redundancy, the passing of (both) parents etc. Those sorts of things.
That is the point in time were you (metaphorically) Grow A Pair.
You learn what it is be A Man or A Responsible Adult. Responsible for your own behaviour and responsible for others. A classic example is when you simply cannot anymore dump the kids onto the grandparents when you ‘need’ a babysitter. yeah.
In other words, you learn the futility and the actual harm & damage that can come from telling lies.
Actual outright Porkie Pies or lies by omission.
You also find that it takes a great weight off your mind, you live (esp with yourself, in your own head) that much better.
You gain self confidence, can find it easy to quit habits like smoking & drinking and overeating. You sleep better.
And therein is my impression of (the lovely?) Leah.
Neurotic, guilt ridden, possibly overweight, can’t exist without morning coffee (and hence endless painkillers to fix the headaches caffeine gives you/me/her), white wine in the evenings to go with a low sat-fat tasteless meal and, as a consequence of all that, generally stressed out.
And what causes the stress? Lying.
Now then, how much sh1t have I just dropped myself into…………

Living in the Progressive Capital City of the world (IMO) I was party to a group of them talking about various progressive issues – and one person stood up to warn the people there not to use the term “Climate Change”. That was about six months ago. Language and lies.

We use plenty of renewable energy in Tennessee, it is called hydroelectric. For some reason , hydroelectric power is exempted from the renewables list. it is the only renewable that functions as reliable baseload power, provided we have had enough rain.
Texas is a “red state” that is a leader in solar and wind generation. Liberals show their bias when they make statements like Southern states have “no renewable energy policies”

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